Every Paveway you drop.

 

RAYTHEON baby! 

 

Want to really look stupid?

 

 

Every Paveway you drop

Yes it does. Read that press release again.

 

 Herald

 

Read that press release again.

 

You know, the burden of proof is on you. So unless you can quote the exact words, telling me to read it again simply won't work. But you can't since this is an order for modification of existing PWII kits, it does not include bomb bodies or fuzes.

 

Note that the French forces do use some US-made bombs and fuzes but the vast majority of bombs (mk8x/CBEMS with PWII or AASM kits) use a French fuze.

To Herald

 

"For the rest of you, some nations do  some things very well. Ballistic rockets and subs, even torpedoes, the French do very well (better than the US in many cases MU90 being an example) ."
Thank to recognize it 
"Commercial aviation their products are  pedestrian to terrible(A400M disaster)."
Like Falcon jet from Dassault, Ecureuil or Dauphin from french part of Eurocopter, A300 or A330 (won US tanker contract initially, won Australian or Canadian contracts), or CFM 56 joint venture?
EADS double gouvernance problem are specific happened since EADS was formed and also due to German.
 
Likewise combat aircraft (Rafale). Combat ordnance, their A2G ordnance in its latest iteration is fair to excellent depending on type(SCALP being excellent). Their latest  A2A weapons and SAM systems, as long as its not modern MBDA [Matra]), is only just okay (CROTALE and Matra Magic and 530 work aa intended, the rest is junk.).
Rafale is good but late on roadamp improvment since funding is slow due to budgetary constraint.Still best aircraft in the world outside USA.And Mica is good as Aster.
 
Their latest surface fleet combatant series (Forbin and Lafayette) are jokes (Combat information system integration failures and one hit and they explode and sink design horrors).   

Crap. Just developement problems lile US have.Remember the DD51 which has to be towed back to an US harbor because of a software fault.

 

The French use a heck of a lot more American technology than they care to admit,

We use some US tech like USA which use some french tech also in the Pac 3 for exemple.The key is to be able to produce it or duplicate it in case of bad relationship with USA.Like for you.

1)It is a secondary system which could not prevent us to militarly act, even US put an embargo, and which would be too costly to develop ourselves:

exemple: E3F AWACs, or E2F which have a french specific software maintained by us and a good stockpile of spares.

KC135 are old tech easy to copy and maintain alone.Like C130J. More over we produce CFM56 for KC135.

An other exemple are Paweway bombs we use as long we can, since they are much cheaper than french equivalent and NATO widespread.

An other exemple is contract awarded for US Hellfire missiles for french Tigers, which are only laser guided and an ammunition.US can not prevent us to use our stockpile, since there is no EW external communication system.And we can relaunch and produce Trigat we have developped but not produced as too costly.

Our AASM stock is primary for own France strategic use as we can use it without relying on US GPS.Like our Arcole laser guided one ton bomb.or AS30L.

 

2)It does not jeopardize our technological and industrial base by diverting fundings

 

 because their own stuff doesn't work that well. Their GP bombs for example. (fuses)  American fuses finally do work (only avarage performance here , Russian and British are just better designs) after decades of being the example of the worst fuse technology tree on Earth
See answer above.

 

CDG aircraft carrier had minor problems but which brought some troubles:

-Reactors are not very powerful since we use derivative of SSBN K15.

It was a choice because developing a specific one would have been costly.Still she makes 27knts

We could have put 3 reactors if the hull would have been large enough to reach 32 knts.Not permitted since our military construction dock of DCNS in Brest did not allowed ship bigger than 40 000 tons and lenght above 270 meters.Moreover it would have add 1 billion euros to the ship.

 

-However it leads to a risky and sophisticated design for properlers for maximum power efficiency, which have been broken.

This because of post cold war insufficient fundings: subcontractor had financial problems due to lack of french military orders, and hiden to DGA (which manage contracts) its failure in producing all properlers at right quality level.Solved.

 

- we had an other problem which was the 5 REM cumulated annual radiation level which was the norm for nuclear warships during several decades including in USA.CdG reactors meet this spec.

However EU civilian norm evolved toward very low level of 1 REM cumulated annual radiation level.We wanted to meet this very severe norm for poltical reasons when deployed in harbours abroad without Greenpeace or other demonstrations, however it added a lot of weight to nuclear reactors shielding.

 

-Bridge was too short

Since it was not envisionned initially to buy E2C.Margin for maneouvering E2C safely at night need 3 meters.

Spec was added too late.

 

Moreover due to lack of funding, CDG building took 10 years instead of 6 initially,  which led to management problems when program responsible go to retirement in the middle or leaved.

CdG was a bad advertising.

 

 

"CDG aircraft carrier had minor problems but which brought some troubles"

 

If what the CDG had were minor problems what would be a major problem?

 

Hitting an island and sinking?

 

Honestly now... the CDG has was a disaster of a program and a perfect example of why so few navies even attempt to build a true aircraft carrier.   You have spent billions and billions of euros to gain the ability to transport a token force of Rafales by sea, roughly one year in two.

 

 

If your leadership had it all to do over again they would kill the CDG in a heartbeat and use the money to fund equipment that might actually prove useful.

 

 

 

Rufus

Still CdG carrier costed only 3,3 Billions euros R&D included.Not so bad.A 20% overcost.

 

Properler systems are solved and she will be available 60 to 80 % of the time if needed.

And if not available for operation, then we would use air force from oversea territories or wait CDG operationnal.

 

I would not call a token force of a war force in near future of 3 squadron of 36 Rafale F2/F3 (i.e best polyvalent fighter currently operational outside USA) which can be buddy refueled, with 2 or 3 EC2 F in support  (2 squadrons on board in peace time, 3 in war time with security restrictions removed)

With Scalp (or ASMP-A nuclear missile) and buddy refuelment, CdG can hit a target more than 2400 km away.

Few nations could detect it 2400 km away their coast and try to sink it.

Even Chineses would have problems.We could hit Shanghai or Beijing by risking it in Pacific in case.

 

With 1850 Mica, 600 Scalp and 3000 AASM in a common armée de l'air and Navy common stockpile in a next futur.

We can do today air raids against any nation in the world except USA, and it is a much more powerful force than British carrier force they had in Falkland (20 short range subsonic Harriers, non BVR missiles, no early warning) .

Who can do that except USA and France ?

 

If few nations has carrier, it is mainly because you need to develop a potent navalized air fighter to put on.

And you need also nukes to protect your country first, and to be largely independant from use restrictions.

 

However, we need a second carrier, I agree.

 

 

Think Rufus that we could attempt to blockade China or India naval traffic with it by staying far away from their coast much behind Taiwan or Philipino.

And chineses SSN are much too noisy to cope with its battle group (and our SSN) in deep blue sea  waters, India has only one SSN not operational.

SSK even silent have difficulties to sink such ship far away their coast.

Only USA, Russia and UK can cope with our CdG battle group thank to their carrier and SSN power.

We can do today air raids against any nation in the world except USA

Russia, India or China are large countries and an aircraft carrier moves 1200 km a day.

Russia has too much modern SSN to risk CdG against them for us,  and BTW we need only air refuelers to strike some targets in Kola peninsula or Saint Pertersburg area.I defy them to do the reverse with their few Blackjacks and SU considering their availability and deployed tech.

India has no operational SSN but some rather decent SU30 MKI but maybe 50 operationals at any times.

 

Chineses has several hundreds (old) SU27/SU30 but as any air force, they are maybe 60% available at any time and spread in distant air bases covering all Chinese coast.

Considering their numbers of modern fighters, I do not see them able to counter a 18 Rafales low level strike with stealthy 400 km Scalp (or ASMP-A) on all their coast without regrouping their best fighters.And considering actual Rafale RCS and ECM I do not feel we should have a big attrition ratio.

Remember we can decide when and where we strike.We have initiative.

 

So it would allow us to strike elsewhere.If you calculate buddy air refueling from an other Rafale M (saying 3 tons per hour consumption for a Rafale in Hi cruise part flight), you would notice that Rafale M can go up to 2000 km in a Hi-Lo-Hi missions and launch a 400 km Scalp. 400 km away from the coast or 200 km away if we strike 200 km inside.

They can not counter few dozen hits on their territory in a week.

And they can not reply on french territory in any way in a non-nuke response (except with few dozen nukes from their ICBM but we can hit them with 300 in reward).

We can do 1942 like Doolittle like raid against them.And during several days.

Enough to destroy few good military assets or buildings in Shanghai or Beijing and humiliated them since they can not retaliate.

 

Now if we are much behind Taiwan or Phillipino, Chineses can try to use only their few poor and noisy SSN to strike CdG.We can mobilize up to 5 better SSN plus a dozen frigates to protect CdG.

(In next 10 years we can add submarines Scalps from our subs to do surprise attacks).

Any chinese surface ship in a 2000 km radius either military or civilian can be striked.

I doubt that any shipping companies would try to take the risk to export Chinese goods and pay high price insurances.

 

Technology rules.It is not the same game than trying to strike many time China in mainland, and destroy their whole ground and air forces, or to defend Taiwan which need to be close, like US would try in order to defend Taiwan.

We just can hit few targets in China while US are able to strike thousands of them in mainland China.

But we can still hit hundred of naval target between Korea and Japan and humiliate them and disturb their economy.

CdG 1000 km behind Taiwan can hit naval targets from South korea to Vietnam.All maritime facade of China.Check it on a map.

 

 

 

Now I want a second carrier.ASAP.

You think you can blockade India or China with a single aircraft carrier?

 

LOL

 

What else do I really need to say in response to that?

 

 

The CDG is about one thing, pride.  It allows France to move a couple dozen Rafale's pretty much anywhere in the ocean, but that is a force too small to do anything but small-scale punitive strikes against an opponent with any real level of capability. 

 

Ship or submarine launched cruise missiles would offer the same capability at a tiny fraction of the cost.